How Kibaki Rigged 1969 Parliamentary Elections In The Same Way
…As Gitobu Imanyara emerges to sue serial slapping first lady for recent attack at State House
Jael Mbogo was a parliamentary candidate in Nairobi’s then Bahati constituency in 1969 and she recently explained to a British newspaper in great detail how she was rigged out of that parliamentary seat.
The amazing thing is that the manner in which it was done bears striking resemblance to how the presidential elections was rigged late last year plunging the country in chaos. And guess who the candidate she was standing against was? Yep, one Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki.
Much as I am a great admirer of Tom Mboya, one of the big mistakes he made was to drive all the way to Makerere University from Nairobi in his VW Beetle to fetch one Mwai Kibaki, then an economics lecturer at that university to become Kanu’s first executive officer. Kibaki learnt a lot of his politics from Tom Mboya but by the time the 1969 general elections were held, Mboya was dead, assassinated by Kibaki’s inner circle and his close friend Kibaki was carrying on life as if nothing had happened.
But it seems that the voters knew about this betrayal and firmly voted against Kibaki. Mbogo told the Obserever that she was so far ahead in the early vote tallying that the BBC went ahead and announced that a young woman had defeated a government minister for the Bahati seat. It was not to be. In circumstances that are remarkably similar to what happened in December, the results for Bahati were delayed for several days as GSU officers surrounded the vote counting centre. When those results were finally announced, Mwai Kibaki had won by a razor-thin margin.
Jael Mbogo who is now a civil rights activist told the Observer; 'Kibaki stalled the result, and then robbed me of victory. Because he looks so holy, people are still asking if he really was capable of stealing this election. What I say is "Of course, he has done it before".
Read the Observer story here
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2251523,00.html
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